1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an instrument and a system.
2. Description of the Related Art
A conference system that performs a remote conference through, for example, the Internet has been widely used. In this conference system, a conference terminal device at one conference room acquires the image and sound of a user, and transmits data including the acquired image and sound to a conference terminal device at another conference room. Then, in this conference system, the conference terminal device at the other conference room receives the data, and outputs the image and sound included in the received data. Such a conference system enables communication between users at different places.
A known electronic blackboard (interactive whiteboard) receives handwriting input of line drawing on a board to display the received line drawing on the board, and simultaneously generates drawing information representing the line drawing to store therein the information. In a known sharing system, two electronic blackboards connected through a network cooperate with each other. In the sharing system, drawing information received by one of the electronic blackboards is transmitted to the other electronic blackboard to display identical information at the two electronic blackboards. Such a sharing system allows a plurality of users at different places to draw line drawing as if sharing one electronic blackboard.
In a known messaging system, a message is transmitted to a plurality of users belonging to a group. For example, a user selects a group and inputs a message at a client device (a smartphone, a tablet terminal, or a notebook computer, for example) held by the user. The client device transmits the selected group and the input message to a server device. The server device stores the message received from the client device in association with the selected group, and provides a log of the message to client devices of all users belonging to the selected group. Such a messaging system allows transmission of a message to a plurality of users belonging to a group at once.
Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2014-075074 discloses the technology of reading in, for example, personal settings and a personal address book to a shared instrument and allowing use of the shared instrument through a personal account.
Before a conference, a user of the conference system needs to input the address, password, and the like of a conference terminal device at the end of the line to start a session between conference terminal devices. Before electronic blackboard sharing, a user of the sharing system needs to input the address, password, and the like of an electronic blackboard at the end of the line to start a session between electronic blackboards.
However, the procedure of such session start processing involves specification of a device at the end of the line, and in addition, acquisition of the address, password, and the like of the specified device by any means, which is cumbersome.
In view of the above-described problem in the conventional art, there is a need to provide an instrument and a system that can easily start a session that is processing for communicating information with another instrument.